Tyler Perry's How Did I Get Married?
by Patbert
Summary: "By far the best work ever by or inspired by Tyler Perry" -NYTimes. Before any of them are married, the gang wins a trip to Las Vegas, and after a night of debauchery, manslaughter, and getting blackout drunk, several in the group wake up wearing wedding rings. The gang must unravel the mystery of the previous night to answer the question "How Did I Get Married?"
1. The Plannening

**CHAPTER 1 - THE PLANNENING**

_Author's Note: I never saw the movie that this work is based on. It looked dumb. My story is probably better. Read it instead! A shoutout to the IMDB list of characters and the movie's trailer, the only things I looked at before writing this story. Also, I forgot what the trailer was about. _

_Furthermore: All people, places, and brand names in this story were guest written by someone who does have permission to write those words in a story. My methods are airtight and lawsuit-proof._

* * *

It was a dark and relatively wolf-free night. Terry was attempting to make onion rings by way of his coffee machine. Thunder shook the walls and lightning tore open the night sky. Terry had been afraid of storms for as long as he could remember. They reminded him of when he was a child, and his father had been struck by lightning and became Lightning Man.

His phone rang. It was Diane.

"What up, nerd?!" shouted Diane into his other ear. Terry dropped his phone in terror, somewhat on edge from the storm raging outside. Terry hadn't even heard her break into his house. They sat down at the table as Terry tore a loaf of French bread in two for them to eat. They were both terribly in love, but were afraid of commitment.

"What's going on?" asked Terry.

"I was listening to the radio this evening, and they were having a contest. I was the 7th caller, and I won tickets for 8 to your cabin outside of Las Vegas."

"Las Vegas? Never heard of it." Terry frowned. Spanish was never his strong suit. He did have a strong suit, but it was presently at the cleaner's. He had worn it to an interview on Tuesday, but he had stopped for lunch on the way home, and got mustard all over it. Terry loved mustard, almost as much as he hated commitment. He had considered marrying mustard, but decided he would have to wait until he could find a clergyman who spoke mustard's subtle and beautiful language. Otherwise how would he or she know if the mustard had agreed to the marriage? There was one thing Terry definitely did not support, and that was kidnapping.

"Let's call up our friends and see if they can go. We can talk about feelings the whole time!" Diane usually had some pretty great ideas, but as a man, Terry objected to this feelings talk. He did, however, want to see his friends. Plus, he loved vacations. He loved them so hard. Mustard would be jealous. Mustard, beautiful but naïve.

"Mega tight!" bellowed terry. "I'm on this!" He picked up his phone from where it lay on the ground. He was pleased to see that it hadn't broken. He started dialing his buddies.

The plannening had begun.


	2. Road trip

**CHAPTER 2 - ROAD TRIP**

Half an hour later, Terry and Diane had called up their friends. Patricia & Gavin, Angela & Marcus, Mike & Sheila, all of their friends were able to go. Of course they could go. It'd be a pretty boring story if none of the characters could attend the adventure. Will Smith couldn't go, so they invited Trina instead. Odd, you'd think Will Smith would want to go to the wild wild west. Exhausted from their phone calls, Terry and Diane collapsed onto the couch. Suddenly, the power flickered and the lights went out.

Seconds later, lightning struck, bathing the living room in a blinding white light. There stood all seven of their friends, bags packed. Marcus walked over to the switch, restoring light to the room.

"Whoa!" Terry started. "I didn't realize you'd be here so fast! I still have to pack." He walked to his closet and threw some socks, underwear and his cape into a suitcase.

Diane had known about the trip, so she was already packed and ready to go.

They decided to leave immediately to avoid traffic. There was never any traffic this late on a Tuesday night.

"Whose car should we take?" asked Diane.

"Yours!" cackled Patricia. "I'm not riding in Terry's beat up rape van!"

"So be it." sighed Terry.

They all put their bags into the trunk, and the nine of them piled into Diane's hot pink Mazda Miata.

"Gas will be super cheap this way." Thought Marcus quietly to himself. "More Schlitz for me."

They got on the highway, and began the long drive from Oakland, Californey to the Las Vegas mountains.

"Diane! Sheila is invading my personal bubble!" whined Trina. It was true, Sheila was already enormous and took up a lot of space, but she seemed to be growing larger by the minute.

"I expand when I get excited." Sheila explained. This was a problem. There already wasn't much space left in Diane's Miata, and with Sheila swelling so rapidly, they would soon run out of air. They pulled over at a gas station and got out. Terry went inside to go get everyone some Big Gulps. The others fanned Sheila until Sheila's swelling stopped.

Terry returned, passed out the Big Gulps, and they all climbed back into the car. Nobody even acted impressed that Terry could hold 9 Big Gulps in his arms at once. That's just Terry. He's hard like that.

"Actually, can we go to the bathroom before we leave?" asked Trina.

Diane whipped around in her seat to look at Trina, a crazed look in her eyes. "There's no time!"

Sheila sucked down her Big Gulp nervously. She had to go to the bathroom too. If only there was time! But there wasn't. I already said that there wasn't. Pay attention, Sheila.

Suddenly, Sheila's eyes closed and she shrunk quickly down to regular size. A loud snoring like a diamond saw told them that Sheila was asleep.

"Of course I have roofies!" exclaimed Terry, defensively. "What kind of man owns a rape van without owning roofies? It's important."


	3. An Emotional Breakdown

**CHAPTER 3 - AN EMOTIONAL BREAKDOWN**

About 500 miles out from Las Vegas, they started hearing strange noises over Sheila's snoring. It was sort of a creaking noise that got worse when they went over bumps.

"Listen to that! The car is singing to us!" said Angela.

"Speaking of singing, we should sing!" shrieked Mike.

"Don't be stupid. You sound stupid. But yes, we should sing." stated Marcus as everyone grew silent.

In unison, they all started to sing. "When I wake up, well you know I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be the one who wakes up next to you."

Just then, the creaking tripled in volume, and the car lurched. The creaking was replaced by a grinding roar, and a shower of sparks lit up the night sky. Yes, it was still dark. They were making great time.

Diane lost control of the car, but not because she is a woman. It started to spin, drifting off the side of the road.

The car slid to a halt, and the passengers poured out of the car.

"What happened?" Terry belched. The Big Gulp had given him terrible gas in addition to his distended bladder.

The gang examined the car to find that the wheel in Sheila's corner of the car had snapped clean off. Gavin started shaking Sheila until she woke up. Mike had a good laugh. They should have spent more money on wagon tongues before they left.

After explaining the situation to her, the group decided that they would have to walk.

A couple of miles down the road, they saw a coyote. When they approached, it looked at them, stood on its hind legs, and spoke in the voice of a man, "Be careful on your upcoming journey. There is danger everywhere, and though you do not see it, it is very real. Beware the man who…"

They continued walking, out of earshot of the coyote, remaining disinterested. Their attention was, however, caught by a gas station at the next exit.

"We can call someone for help!" they all yelled, but not at the same time. It was pretty cacophonous. I usually skip past that point of the DVD, it's a pretty unpleasant noise. "I'll race you there!" they all called in the same unpleasant manner. I hate it so much. Seriously, shut up you guys. Let one person talk at a time. You're being rude.

They ran and ran, losing several shoes in the 800 yards that had once separated them from the gas station. Their eyes grew large as they saw what was being fueled up at the pump. It was the most amazing bus they had ever seen. It was painted a glossy dark purple, had tank treads instead of wheels, bright orange undercarriage lighting, and more spoilers than any of them had ever seen before.

"We have to steal it." They all said, again only almost together and sounding just awful. Gavin's ears started to bleed.


	4. Hitting the Road and More

**CHAPTER 4 - HITTING THE ROAD AND MORE**

They all piled into the bus, except Terry, who went to go get more Big Gulps. The ones on the bus had a quick rap battle to decide who would drive. Gavin won and slid behind the wheel. He appreciated the lube that had been applied to the seats. That's how you keep the leather fresh.

Terry ran out of the convenient store and dove onto the bus. Treads squealing, Gavin tore out of the parking lot. The thin mustached owner of the bus ran out of the store shaking his fist and Ancient Egyptian Cursing them, but the man hadn't paid his Egypt bill, so it had no effect.

"Bwahahaha!" laughed Gavin, stroking his long beard. This was by far his most successful bus heist ever.

Now the gang had 498 miles to go until they got to Las Vegas. They made a U-turn, went back to the car, and got their bags. This bus was much more comfortable for the nine friends than the car had been. This was perhaps the best bus.

Since they were all going on the trip to talk about their feelings and they were about to spend 500 miles of highway together, Diane forcefully insisted that they do so now.

After the shouting and punching had died down, they all agreed. Gavin put the bus in cruise control, and joined the others in the bus's living room. This was a strange bus. The chairs were all love seats and could be placed anywhere in the bus. There were several curtains hanging from the ceiling that would simulate the privacy of different rooms without the permanence of solid walls. The bathroom was just a hole in the floor near the back of the bus. Truly a marvel of modern engineering.

Diane decided to start the conversation rolling. "Angela, you've only been mentioned twice so far. How is your relationship with Marcus doing?"

"Well, Marcus left the terlet seat up last month, and I haven't forgiven him for it yet. I must have tried poisoning him five times for that now!"

Gavin cut in, "That won't be a problem on this bus!"

The outburst of laughter from the entire group put Angela into a fury. "It's not funny! Lack of a terlet seat doesn't excuse laziness! I'll poison you all!"

Just then, Trina remembered that Gavin wasn't terribly bright. He had a sexy sexy beard, but that didn't make him a wise man. "Gavin, do you know how cruise control works?"

"Of course I do! Don't you see this epic beard?" Just then, a loud thump sounded from the front of the bus. Gavin slid (still covered in lube) up to the front of the bus. They were in a large field surrounded by a beautiful barbed wire fence. The field was full of terrified cows fleeing for their lives, as well as one dead cow settling into his new home on the front of the bus. Gavin hit the brakes and the bus rolled to a stop.

They got out and examined the damage. There was cow all over the front of the bus and barbed wire tangled around the bus's treads.

"Nice going, tardosaurus!" shouted Patricia. "It's going to take hours to fix all this!"

"Nah, I got this." Gavin chuckled. He unwrapped the barbed wire from the treads and wrapped them around his fists. He then strolled to the front of the bus, ultra-punched the cow off of the grill, and wiped up all the blood with his beard.

He then used the razor sharp barbed wire gloves to shave off his beard.

"Love is never having to say that you've never cleaned up a dead cow with your beard." he said, and kissed Patricia. She kissed back, totally turned on.

"I love happy endings!" swooned Sheila. The others agreed that it was very nice, and then got back on the bus.

"I don't think Gavin should drive anymore." said Marcus.

"I agree." agreed Angela agreeably. She knew what she was doing. "You drive, sweetie."

Marcus returned to the highway, and pushed the accelerator to maximum velocity.

"VROOOOM" shouted the bus.


	5. Enter The Cabin

**CHAPTER 5 - ENTER THE CABIN**

They arrived at Terry's cabin just before lunch time. It was up a long winding dirt road high in the mountains of Las Vegas. The roof of the cabin provided a beautiful 360 degree view of the unspoiled wilderness that was the New Mexico desert. Unbeknownst to the group, the dazzling lights of Las Vegas lay just over the mountain's summit which peaked only 30 feet above the roof.

"This is beautiful!" said Angela, in the way that only a proud mother can.

"Wait. You have kids? You said you didn't have any!" asked Marcus, feeling betrayed.

"What? I don't have any kids!" Angela responded defensively.

"The narrator implied you have kids! That you are a proud mother!"

Sorry, sorry. The way she said it just reminded me a lot of the way that proud mothers say things. She doesn't have kids. She's not even pregnant.

"Darn right!" they said in unison.

They all got their bags out of the bus and ran inside to claim rooms. It was a pretty big cabin, and there were plenty of rooms for all of the couples, as well as a room for Trina, who was single.

In the kitchen was a gift basket full of bath supplies, flowers, and a steak. There was a note attached to it. Marcus picked it up and read:

_'Dear contest winners, enjoy your weekend in this lovely cabin. Here are some supplies to make your time here more comfortable. You should probably refrigerate the steak. I don't know.'_

"Look!" exclaimed Mike. "There's writing on the back!"

Marcus turned the note over and read:

_"You're reading the wrong side."_

* * *

Now that they were all settled in, they put the steak in the fridge and went to check out the pool. The outdoor closet had a bunch of inflatable pool floats shaped like narwhals. They all began inflating narwhals for the tournament, and applying sun tan lotion. Nothing ruins a vacation like a sunburn.

The narwhal jousting tournament was about to begin when the phone rang. Everyone looked around blankly. This wasn't a cell phone, this was the cabin's landline.

"Terry, why are you paying for a landline out here in your cabin?" inquired Mike. "Nobody uses landlines anymore, and you're almost never here."

Regardless, Terry opened the sliding glass door, and walked indoors to answer the phone. As he reached for the handset, it stopped ringing. He had missed it. He didn't have an answering machine. Answering machines were the tool of the devil, his mother had always told him.

He slid open the door again and had almost closed it, when the phone rang again. "This time, I'll get it for sure." He thought to himself.

He nabbed the receiver.

"Hello?"

"Dude. I've got a great idea for a movie! It'll have Martin Lawrence and Queen Latifah, and they own a shrimping boat, and it's basically a retelling of the Wizard of Oz, but everything is shrimp boat themed! The lion is a big shrimp, and they have to catch him, but he's too scared of them, so he's tough to catch, and…"

"Whoa…" Terry rolled his eyes and hung up the phone. He had thought of the Wizshrimp of Oz years ago, but didn't have the connections in Hollywood to make it happen. He didn't know why people kept coming to him with ideas.

He was on his way back outside, when the calendar on the wall caught his eye. He looked closer at it. In the square for the day's date was printed "Hunting season begins" and it was circled in blood.

"Hunting season? I love hunting! And I bet my bottom dollar the guys will too!" he ran toward the sliding glass door, almost tripping over the rug in his excitement.

"Guys! Guys! Hunting season started earlier today!" Terry shouted jubilantly.

There were a bunch of hoots and hollers that sounded very enthusiastic. It was decided. The men would go hunting, and the women could talk about feelings all they wanted.

Terry led the guys to his walk-in hunting closet and opened the door. Guns, vests, and jars of deer urine lined the walls. In fact, not just deer urine, there was urine from almost every kind of animal Gavin could imagine. This was going to be great!


	6. The Hunting Trip

Thirty minutes later, the guys were armed to the teeth, and supplied with enough various urines to last weeks in the wild. Those deer, or bears, or whatever that lived in these mountains were going to pay for crossing them!

They said goodbye to the ladies, who were already two tubs of ice cream deep in conversation about feelings and relationships, and headed out.

The afternoon sun was bright but not particularly hot, due to their altitude. Marcus was trying to draw a map to get them back to the cabin, but soon all of the trees started to look alike, especially since his cartography was only on a 3rd grade level. Meadows and clearings became less frequent, and soon they were lost in the dense, unforgiving Nevada forest.

It was starting to get darker; not only from the density of the trees overhead, but it was getting late as well. They hadn't had anything to eat since they emptied the fridge on the amazing bus for breakfast. Everyone was getting very hungry, but nobody was whining about it except Mike.

"I'm so hungry! I'm gonna die! When are we gonna find an animal to shoot?" howled Mike.

"Once you stop yelling and scaring the animals, you taint!" barked Gavin.

"Yeah, you taint!" growled Terry.

"Come up with your own insults, Terry." dogged Gavin, looking around and noticing that all the bark on the trees was pretty rough.

Mike fell silent and put on his sad face. He was embarrassed and feeling down, but he was still hungry. He kept his head down, setting his sights on even the small creatures. He would eat a quail, a possum, or…

"Berries! I found berries!" whooped Mike. Before anyone could poison check them, mike had already stripped a whole bush of its juicy purple berries, and shoved them into his vacuous mouth.

"Mike! Stop! We need to find out what kind of berries these are, and if they're even safe to eat!" said Terry, always the voice of reason. He then looked around to find that the other guys had already eaten an impressive number of berries.

"Well, why not." Terry said to himself, picking a bunch and putting the berries into his mouth. He sure wasn't going to drag their three poisoned carcasses back to the cabin.

The group continued to walk on, half hunting, half trying to find their way back to the cabin. Their exhaustion coupled with the altitude and questionable berries had them feeling strange.

"Is that tree glowing?" asked Marcus, sure that his eyes were turning tricks on him.

"I think it is." agreed Gavin. "But why would a tree be glowing?"

There was no doubt about it; the entire forest was bathed in a pulsing colorful glow.

"Trees don't glow! There must have been something crazy in those berries!" Terry hissed.

The pulsing light kept changing colors and throwing shadows around the ground. The trees seemed to move around them. There seemed to be whispers coming from the bushes, carried from unknown directions by the twisting wind.

"We have to get back to the cabin! I think we're almost there!" Marcus shouted, over the escalating violin music.

A large dark shape appeared between some trees in front of them.

"A bear!" shouted Mike. He aimed his gun and shot. The large silhouetted shape fell to the ground as suddenly as it had appeared.

"A bear?" asked Terry. "I've been up here dozens of times and never seen a bear! I don't even think they live in this part of the country!"

The guys walked up to the shape to examine their kill.

It was a man in a park ranger's uniform.

Dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnnn!


	7. Much Ado About Manslaughter

"You shot a person! A real person! And he's a park ranger!" shouted Mike.

"What? YOU shot him, idiot! What in tardnation were you thinking?" counter-shouted Gavin.

"I know, I know! I thought he was a bear!" returned Mike. "Although, is killing a park ranger worse than killing a regular person? I don't know if they count as police."

"It doesn't matter! You killed a person, and the penalty for that is plenty bad! Better start doing butt yoga to get you ready for what they do to you in jail!" Terry cut in.

"Wait wait wait!" Marcus interrupted. "We're out in the middle of the woods. Magic woods by the look of all these freaky glowing trees. Maybe we just cover this up… in the ground."

A moment of silence descended as the group thought it over.

"Ok, I'm in. I don't want Mike going to jail either, and I'm done thinking about him doing butt yoga. How do we do this? Frame some wolves? Burn down the woods?" Gavin had some pretty good ideas. People always told him that.

"No, I think we should bury him… like I inferred in my previous sentence… when I said cover it up in the ground. I even put on these sunglasses when I said the pun part at the end. Look." Marcus showed Gavin his sunglasses. There was no denying it. The glasses were pretty great, except Marcus was facing the wrong way. It was dark in the forest and Marcus couldn't see with the sunglasses on.

"I have a shovel!" declared Mike, excitedly.

"That's a weird thing to bring hunting." said Terry. "Ok, get digging."

"Oh, I can't use this. This is a right handed shovel. I'm left handed." Mike said sadly. He wished he could help dig. "Marcus, you try it."

"I'm not right handed. Neither is Gavin." replied Marcus.

"Really?" asked Terry. "None of us are right handed?"

It was terribly unlikely and unlucky, but it was true. The four of them were left handed, but now they had something else to bond over. Something… much else. Getting rid of the dead body, that is. Not left handedness. What were they going to bond over with left handedness? Telling right hander jokes? Please.

They all voted that since Mike had shot the ranger, he would have to dig the hole. Using the right handed shovel was extremely awkward and funny to watch. Mike kept falling over. When his tears made the shovel handle too wet for him to grip, Marcus took over.

Marcus was bad at using the shovel too, but Mike had loosened the ground for him, so his progress was faster. Before long, they had dug a large, yet very ugly and unprofessional looking hole. Gavin stood next to the hole, trying his best to look cool.

They grabbed the body, Marcus and Gavin with an arm each, and Terry and Mike on leg duty. As they were lowering him into the hole, Mike's footing slipped and he fell in, the dead body falling on top of him.

"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeek!" he screamed like a woman with soft hands and colorful fingernails, scaring away all the nearby birds.

"Ma'am? What's going on over here? Are you okay? I heard a scream!" a voice called from the bushes not too far away. Another park ranger appeared through the brush. He drew his gun as he saw what was happening. With a startled look on his face, he scrambled back into the bushes and ran, yelling into his radio for backup.

"Balls! We've got to get this guy covered up and get out of here fast!" stressed Terry. They got Mike out of the hole, kicked the body into the deep part of the hole (it was such a terrible hole), and started shoving dirt on top of him. They stomped down the dirt for a few seconds and ran off together through the trees.

Despite all the strange colorful light, they made it out of the trees and onto a road. They saw some approaching headlights. They waved and jumped, shouting for the car to stop and give them a ride. Unfortunately it was a police car.

The officers jumped out of the car, guns drawn. The boys were totally and thoroughly boned.


	8. The Haunted Fetch Quests

"The name's Sherriff Troy." introduced Sherriff Troy in a thick country accent. "Now, I understand that accidents happen, and boys will be boys. But then that boyish innocence is ripped away from them by what happens in prison. Prepare to be men. I'm taking you to Troy State Penitentiary; we won several gold medals in this year's Prison Rape Olympics, and one in the Prison Rape Special Olympics. "

The boys looked at each other nervously as they lie belly down on the ground. Terry was right about the butt yoga.

Sherriff Troy and his two nameless deputies cuffed the four men and squeezed them into the back seat of the cruiser. It wasn't as roomy as the back seat of Diane's Miata had been.

Despite their squirming and criminal backgrounds that stretched all the way to the beginning of this trip, none of them could get out of their handcuffs. From here in the car, they could see that the trees weren't glowing. The colorful glow was coming from down in the valley. There was a city down there, full of crazy lights! They couldn't believe it. They had no idea, especially Terry, that there was a city so close to the cabin.

"Now, I wasn't always a Sherriff." coughed Sherriff Troy, snapping them back to their harsh reality. "No, sir. This here's gonna be a long ride to the prison, and I see no need to follow due process and go to the police station first, so I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there, I'll tell you how I became the Sherriff of Las Vegas."

Sherriff Troy began telling them the story of how he became the Sherriff of Las Vegas, and warden of Troy State Penitentiary. It is, however, a boring story, and we haven't heard what the women are doing for a while now, so we're going to go check in on them now.

Hold on, I forgot their names; gotta find my notes.

Ok.

The women had been talking about feelings for quite some time now, and were running low on ice cream and had destroyed all the pillows in their numerous pillow fights. The vacuum bags were stuffed to the brim with pillow feathers, but those were gross, so they didn't count as pillows.

"Ooh girls, we have got to go get some new pillows. It's almost bedtime, and Terry's bony arms just aren't gonna cut it as pillows." announced Diane. "Speaking of, where are those boys? It's been hours!"

Trina had a tremendous idea. "Okay, I say we c-c-c-combo up the pillow mission with looking for the men. Let's take the bus, drive on the roads near the forest where they were, and yell out the windows on the way to town."

It was settled. Angela would drive the bus, but first, they were going to need some more Big Gulps.

Just then, Sheila came to the rescue. "There was a gas station about a mile down the road; down by that road that looked haunted!"

IF YOU WANT THE GIRLS TO GO DOWN THE HAUNTED ROAD IN SEARCH OF BIG GULPS, TURN TO PAGE 19. OTHERWISE, KEEP READING ON PAGE 19.

Page 19: So just like that, the girls were off, determined to find their men, some pillows, and a few Big Gulps. After almost wrecking the clutch figuring out how to drive stick transmission, Angela got the bus rolling out of the driveway and onto the road. They coughed on the air, thick with clutch smoke.

They approached the intersection that Sheila was talking about, and could see the gas station through a thick bunch of very haunted looking trees.

"Speaking of gas, how's the tank on this thing doing?" asked Patricia. She knew that sometimes, vehicles need gasoline to keep moving, and she didn't want to get stuck in this haunted forest.

"It doesn't matter anyway. This place doesn't sell gas. They sell something called 'petrol' instead." said Diane, glumly.

"It double doesn't matter!" exclaimed Angela. "This thing is solar powered!"

Their cheers echoed through the forest.

"Wait. It's night time." Sheila pointed out. She was sharp as a tack. An especially sharp tack. A freshly sharpened tack, straight from the tack factory.

"It is inconsequential." Angela alliterated articulately. She flicked the switch that changed the bus over to lunar power, and the buss's batteries began bolstering their balance.

They pulled into the gas station and went inside in search of Big Gulps. Upon reaching the register with their drinks filled to the brim, they discovered that the clerk was a ghost.

"Hello." he said, greeting them in a thoroughly non-stereotypical ghost manner. "That's $2.15 each, or $10.75 for all of them."

They paid and left, each woman thanking him and making sure to terror-pee on the floor near the register. Terror-pee was like tips to ghosts, they figured. The ghost clerk just sighed as they left, and he went to get a ghost mop. The mop had had its head held underwater too long, and had died. This gas station job was pretty okay. You can't double drown after all.

The girls were all back on the bus now, and on their way down the mountain in search of the men. It was time to start hollering.


	9. Xavier

While the women were busy winding their way down the mountain and yelling out the windows, the men had just entered the city in the back of the car. Not the city in the back of the car, but they were in the back of the car when they entered the city. I already told you that the back seat was cramped. No room for a whole city back there.

All the lights in the city mesmerized them. They didn't have lights like this back in Oakland. They reminded Gavin of Tomorrowland at Disneyland: futuristic, yet antiquated. They took the opportunity to look out the window and take in the town. There were people everywhere, many of them drunk and stumbling about. A couple of nice looking ladies hooked on a street corner.

Suddenly, the car screeched to a halt. Terry, not paying attention, lurched forward and wanged his head on the back of the front row of seats. The officers got out of the car and ran over to a group of four Welshmen who were brandishing pikes at some of Las Vegas' famous legal prostitutes. They heard a sound from the right of the car. Someone was opening their door.

"Come with me!" said the man in a hushed voice, waving them toward an alleyway.

They hurried out of the car and ran with the man. When they had run to the end of the alleyway and around a corner, they stopped to catch their breath.

"Thanks!" said Terry. "I'm Terry. What's your name?"

"Amadeus. Amadeus Xavier Mackinaw, but you can call me Deus. For now, I'm out of here." And just like that, he disappeared into a door that locked behind him.

A bit dazed, the boys decided to quickly put as much ground between themselves and the police as they could. They speedwalked into a hotel and spread out across the lobby.

A brawny man holding a few rolls of paper towels walked hurriedly over to them.

"Excuse me, sirs. I must ask you to leave. You are well below the dress code of our magnificent hotel." He pointed to a picture of a man in a flannel shirt, with the words 'You must be this lumberjackish to enter' written on it.

They were still wearing their hunting gear and animal urine bandoliers. How embarrassing! They walked out and continued down the Las Vegas strip. A few streets over, they found a mall. Inside, Mike tried to try on a shirt, and discovered that he was still handcuffed. They were all still handcuffed.

"Guys, we have got to use our arms for more things." sighed Gavin. "How did we not notice this earlier?"

There was a rustling from a nearby clothing rack. Mike, from behind his back, awkwardly aimed his rifle at the sound. A salesman strode briskly over, sweep kicked him, and confiscated his rifle.

"I honestly don't know how the police missed that." said a voice from inside the clothing rack. A head popped out. It was Deus X. Mackinaw again!

"I got you these handcuff keys." he said, handing them the keys.

Marcus had managed to get his hands under his legs so they were in front of him again. He took the keys from Deus and unlocked himself, then his friends. That's how the flight attendants that raised him would have wanted it: help himself, then the others. The flight attendants were also nuns. It was a convent. Very niche.

After rubbing their sore wrists, they looked up, and Deus was gone again.

Oh well. It was shopping time. Marcus, Terry, and Gavin changed into some respectable gentleman clothing. Mike found a Halloween costume and wore that. He looked very classy indeed. They left their old clothes in the changing room. There was no need to pay for these clothes; the animal urine was very fine, and therefore worth quite a bit.

Just in case the salespeople didn't share their views on the value of animal urine, Mike ducked out of the store and the other three followed him.

Back on the road, the women were getting worried. They had been on all of the roads around the forest that showed up on a map, but they hadn't had any luck finding the men. Obviously. You know what's going on with the men; they're not in the woods.

Trina suggested that they all go to a bar and have a drink about it. The ladies thought that it was a sensational idea, and they headed into the city.

Patricia had an idea and said, "What if we called one of their cell phones?" It was a good idea.

Angela was on top of it. She got out her phone and started scrolling through her contacts.

"Angela! Watch the road!" warned Trina.

Angela looked up and saw a giant duck looking down at his glowing cell phone, oblivious of the speeding bus.

POW!

"Mike! MIIIKKEE!" Gavin ran out into the road to tend to his hurt friend. He had flown about 30 feet after Angela had hit him with the bus. The duck costume had given him great hang time.

The 7 other friends ran over to Mike, who was collapsed on the ground. There were feathers everywhere.

Mike opened his eyes and tried to speak.

"Quack quack quack. Quack quaaaaack!" the duck voice modulator was changing his words. Gavin ripped it out. The costume was ruined anyway.

"Good. That thing was getting… annoying." Said Mike, breathing hard. "I'm fine though. Something broke my fall."

He stood up and looked beneath him. On the ground was a large memory foam pillow. On the pillow's tag, there were some initials: "DXM"

"That's weird." said Patricia. "There's a mattress tied to the front of the bus with the same initials on it."

"Good ol' Deus. We'd be in a lot of trouble if not for him." said Marcus.

"Let's all go have that drink now. I'm going to have at least seven of them." said Shiela.


	10. Climbing Through the Wreckage

Marcus squinted at the bright light in his eyes that was streaming through the window. His head was killing him. He sat up as he rubbed his eyes. He seemed to be buried in a pile of heavy, yet soft, couches. He would have gone back to sleep if not for the cold water slowly creeping up the cushions.

He exhumed himself from his furniture tomb and climbed away from the water. He found it hard to balance. The lack of a clear 'up' direction wasn't helping. Finally, he found himself perched atop a small mountain, a molehill if you will, of loveseats. From up here, he could see that he was in the amazing bus, but it was at a strange angle.

He looked out the window, and saw that the bus was in the cabin's swimming pool and was standing nearly vertical on its stern. It wasn't the back of the bus anymore; this bus was nautical now. Water must have entered the hole in the floor (deck) that they called the bathroom. The term 'poop deck' came to mind.

He managed to grab onto the only object on the bus that was bolted to the deck, the captain's chair. From there, he climbed up to the door and opened it.

"No wonder this boat sank." he thought. "There aren't any sails."

Marcus jumped out of the bus, ruining a pool chair with his landing. He looked around. Everything was wrecked. There was garbage everywhere and all of the other pool chairs were ruined too. At least they all matched now. He didn't see anyone outside; they must be indoors.

Marcus walked through the sliding glass door without opening it. Opening it was unnecessary due to the cartoonish Patricia shaped hole in the glass. He'd know those curves anywhere. He wouldn't say that around Gavin though.

On the kitchen floor lay Angela, a pile of cereal boxes serving as a delicious blanket. In the living room, he saw a fort made of couch cushions and sheets. There were two pair of feet sticking out from under it. A quick scan through the rest of the cabin revealed two other couples sleeping in beds and Mike sleeping bat style, upside down with his toes dug into the top of a bedroom closet's door frame. That just left one more.

He heard the sound of a terlet flushing from the hall bathroom. After a second, he heard the sound of someone washing their hands.

"Good for them. I'm glad I have such hygienic friends." thought Marcus. He was glad to have such hygienic friends.

Out walked Gavin, who looked pretty grizzled. Marcus probably looked pretty grizzled himself, but hadn't yet found a mirror.

"Man, what a night." Gavin grumbled. "I can't remember a thing. And you'd think this would at least jog my memory a little." He held up his left hand and displayed a wedding band.

"Great Caesar's ghost!" shouted Marcus, surprised. "You got married last night?"

"I guess. I should find Patricia, and see if she remembers it. I woke up in the garage." replied Gavin, more alert now after Marcus' shouting.

They checked the bedrooms first, but didn't find her. That meant she was probably in the couch fort. They knocked that mess over and woke up Patricia who lay next to Terry. They were both fully clothed, which made Gavin feel better. It wasn't all good news though; Patricia wasn't wearing a ring, just Terry.

"Do either of you remember anything about last night?" Marcus asked them.

"Apparently I love couch forts." said Patricia, who was clearly not happy to be sleeping next to Terry.

"I just love your girlfriend." said Terry, laughter in his voice and eyes. Patricia punched him good in the ribs, for her pleasure.


	11. It All Starts to Add Up And Subtract

"Do either of you remember anything about Terry getting married?" asked Gavin, hands in his pockets, hoping to distract attention from his own finger.

"Whoa!" hooted Terry, noticing his ring for the first time. It was more ornate than Gavin's ring, and had a little jewel in the middle of it. "That's new! I definitely don't remember this happening."

"Let's go wake the others." suggested Marcus.

They woke everyone up, and in ten minutes the whole disheveled group was assembled in the living room, around the wreckage of the couch fort. Gavin saw two more wedding rings in addition to Terry's and his own. One was on Trina's hand, and the other was on…

"Who are you?" asked Marcus, sounding a bit ruder than he had meant to. It was fine though. He didn't know her.

"I'm Pam. I don't remember much about last night, but some of your faces look familiar. I was out with some friends, then I met you and you…" she pointed at Angela and Trina. "and the next thing I know, I'm waking up here. I did wake up wearing this sash though." she gestured to the sash she was wearing. On it were the words "Maid of Honor" written in blood.

Trina looked down at her sore index finger. There was a small bandage wrapped around it.

"That'll be my blood." she said, sheepishly. "I guess we were best friends last night. Would you like to stick around for this mystery?"

"I'd be delighted. I've got nothing going on today. Just let me call my friends to tell them that I'm alive. We have a scare like this every weekend." Pam giggled.

"It's Thursday morning. " Gavin pointed out. "But regardless, it's nice to meet you. I'm going to keep panicking though."

Pam found her purse hanging from the ceiling fan, and started rummaging around in it. She opened up her phone (haha, she still had a flip phone) and noticed that she had taken a video from the night before. Maybe it would show some of what happened.

They gathered around and watched. It was Pam recording herself with Angela and Trina in the background. There was plenty of fun-screaming and they all looked pretty drunk.

"I can't believe I'm about to get married!" wooed Pam.

"And then I'm getting married!" wooed Trina back.

"Wooooo!" they wooed together.

In the background, they saw Gavin making faces and then walk off frame, hand in hand with a woman that none of them recognized. The video ended.

There was a small scratching sound behind the huddled group and then Gavin began screaming. Smoke billowed from his shirt and fire blazed all over it. Patricia extinguished the match in her hand and threw it to the floor.

Gavin sprinted for the pool, adding his silhouette to the Patricia shaped hole in the sliding glass door.

"I don't blame you." said Angela. "I would have done that too. Where'd you find matches?"

"The matchbook says 'The Loxor Casino' on it." read Patricia. (Author's Note: The Luxor Casino has said they will not pay me royalties for putting their name in my story, so I'm changing it to Loxor.)

It sounded like a good place to start piecing together the night. They changed into their swim suits and headed to the pool. Ten minutes later, they had half lifted half dragged the amazing bus out of the pool.

They changed into their detective outfits and headed back to the bus. Terry was glad he had packed his cape.

"Well, well, well. What have we here? A disaster area by the looks of it." It was Sherriff Troy. The boys grew tense, but the Sherriff didn't notice.

"Everything is fine, officer. We were just heading out for… some cleaning supplies!" supplied Trina.

"I should hope so. The radio station wouldn't be happy to hear that you trashed this cabin and weren't going to fix it. ClearChannel pays me quite well to make sure that contest winners follow the rules." Troy said, menacingly. "There are quite a few of you here. I was only told about eight tickets, and I count nine of you."

"It's my cabin! I can have whoever I want here!" thought Terry to himself, but it was probably better not to call attention to himself around the Sherriff after the events of the previous evening.

"I'm not staying here." Pam piped up. "I just met Mike here in town last night, and he sure is a charmer." She walked up to Mike and nuzzled up to his arm. Mike played along very convincingly.

"Well okay. I'll be back to check on you again. Get this place cleaned up." said Sherriff Troy. "Oh, and before I forget, keep an eye out for four dangerous men. There was a shooting in the forest last night, and a park ranger was killed. I don't mean to scare you; I just want you all to be safe."

They all thanked him and waved goodbye as he left. It was lucky for them that all black people looked the same to Sherriff Troy.

Once he had left, Mike looked at Pam and got a horrified look in his eyes.

"I'm here with Sheila. Has anybody seen Sheila?"


	12. X Marks the Spot

No one had seen Sheila all morning. They split up to search, but it didn't take them long to cover the entire property and come up empty-handed.

"As much as I hate to admit defeat, it looks like she's not here. Let's leave a note on the kitchen table in case she wanders back, but I think we should go check if she's still in town." Angela announced. She was probably more worried than anyone.

She wrote out a note telling Sheila to call her cell phone, set it on the table, and headed back to the bus. Blackout drunk as she had been, she had still remembered to plug her phone into the charger overnight. Angela was good at phone ownership.

After filling the grounds with enough burning clutch smoke to choke an elephant, Angela got the bus going, and the gang headed back to town.

The Las Vegas strip looked very different in the morning daylight, but they were able to find the Loxor Casino. It was a giant cube (take that, you cheap casino) with a light at the top bright enough to be seen even in the daytime.

They valeted the bus and walked in. Angela wasn't about to attempt reversing out of a parking spot in a manual transmission bus.

They stood in the front lobby area and looked around. They didn't have any idea where to start investigating.

"Citizens!" called a distinguished voice. "It's good to see you again!" A bald man in a wheelchair rolled up to them.

"Do we know you?" asked Trina.

"I am Professor Stewart. I am the Loxor Casino's staff psychiatrist. Ordinarily, I wouldn't recognize a group of people from the night before, but you were outrageously fun. Plus, you spent a lot of money on drinks. You even bought some for me."

"Hi." said Terry. "I figured we bought a lot of drinks last night. None of us remember anything that happened. We're trying to piece together a string of marriages that apparently happened last night. We came here because of a Loxor Casino matchbook that Patricia had in her pocket."

"Ooh, drunken marriages. Those will get you, and in Las Vegas they are legally binding." responded Professor Stewart, sounding somewhat sorry for them. He turned to Patricia. "Ah, Patricia, yes, I remember you. I gave you that matchbook to console you. You were furious at Gavin and Mike for embarrassing you at the stop you made before you came here."

"That's a pretty strange thing to give me to make me feel better. How did you know I like matchbooks so much?" asked Patricia. "I feel like that's fantastic and impossible." Patricia loved matchbooks. She loved the weight and feel of them, and hated Matchbox 20 for ruining their good name.  
"You're not crazy, Patricia; you're just a little unwell." explained Professor Stewart. "I am a powerful psychic. I used to live in New York and run a school for uniquely gifted children." Patricia's eyes widened in surprise.

"We're looking for our friend, Sheila." began Gavin.

"And you'd like me to tell you where she is." finished Professor Stewart. "I'd love to, but that's not how being psychic works. I can read minds and communicate without speaking, but I cannot pull answers out of thin air. Plus, that would be cheating, and that would be no fun."

"When you all came in, I didn't meet anyone named Sheila. Pam, here, had just been married, and she bought a round of drinks to celebrate. Gavin vaguely recalls people in Roman armor. I suspect that before you came in here, you were at Caesar's Palace Casino." The Professor was right; Gavin did remember Roman soldiers from the night before.

They thanked the professor and headed back out front. They stiffed the valet, their middle fingers pointed skyward, and Angela filled the parking lot with clutch smoke. She was really getting the hang of first gear now.

They were off to Caesar's Palace. Angela swore she would make Caesar pay for this if it was the last thing she did.


	13. A View to a Wedding

A couple of minutes later, Angela saw Caesar's Palace ahead in the distance. She hit the accelerator and Tokyo-Drifted into an open parking spot near the front door, an impressive feat in a vehicle with tank treads.

They had stood up and started moving toward the door, when Diane shrieked in horror, "We've been on the bus, and we haven't had any Big Gulps!"

The others recognized the gravity of the situation and ran across the street to the gas station.

"Sheila is important, but she would want us to have Big Gulps." Diane sobbed, trying to hold back tears.

They filled their drinks, got in line and started to pay. Trina went first, and had already started terror-peeing on the floor before she realized that the clerk was still alive. How embarrassing!

"I don't mind, it happens all the time in Vegas." said the clerk cheerily.

Relieved, she walked out into the parking lot and started drinking. Most of them had filled their cups with sports drinks to fight off the hangovers that still lingered.

They all met in the parking lot, and walked over to the Casino. They were stopped at the door by a man in Roman armor.

"You can't come in here with those drinks. No outside food or beverage." he recited. He said these words often. That was one of the perils of opening a casino across the street from a gas station.

"Who are you to tell us we can't come in there with these?" demanded Trina.

"I'm Alex." "…ander. Alexander." he continued after a stern look from his manager. "I'm the doorman." His manager demanded that all employees remain in character. The manager was balls deep in maintaining the illusion of Ancient Rome.

"It's just like I told you last night. No outside drinks in the casino." repeated Alexander.

"You remember us? That's great!" cheered Terry, a bit louder than necessary. "We're trying to figure out what happened last night."

"Well, you tried to bring gas station beers into the casino. I stopped you. You finished them all in the parking lot, and then you went to go see Celine Dion. She's performing here again. About an hour and a half later, I kicked these two out of our Kids Center." he gestured to Mike and Gavin. "That's all I know. If you want more details, you can go ask the manager of the Kids Center. His name is Cervantes." Alex pointed out the general direction of the Kids Center.

They thanked him, chugged their Big Gulps, and walked inside. The Kids Center looked a bit out of place in the magnificent casino, but it was pretty kid friendly.

Cervantes met them at the entrance with a scowl directed at Gavin and Mike. "I don't want these two back in here. They scared away a lot of the children last night."

"We're not here to cause trouble." said Gavin, trying to ease the tension. "We need your help. Last night, several of us got married. We suspect it happened here. Do you remember anything like that?"

"Nobody gets married in the Kids Center. USUALLY…" he glared at Gavin and Mike. "people in the Kids Center are too young to get married."

"Sorry, I meant that the marriages happened at this casino." explained Gavin.

"Harrumph. Yeah, I saw your group walk in last night. The women wanted to go see Celine Dion, but these two idiots bought drinks from the bar, and decided to crash the ball pit instead. They behaved until they finished their drinks, but then they started yelling and throwing children." Cervantes recalled.

"I've got cameras all over this building. If someone got married, I've got it on tape." Cervantes led them back to the monitoring room, which was full of small television screens. He found the screen showing Celine's private marriage hall, and started to rewind.

He paused when they saw a couple in front of Celine, but it wasn't anyone they knew. They kept rewinding, and after a few more couples, they saw Pam standing next to a big black rectangle, almost as if the person next to her had been edited out.

"I don't have audio on any of these cameras, so I don't know what's going on with that. I've never really needed audio for what I use these for. You'll have to go talk to Celine to find out more." Cervantes suggested. "As for your friend, Sheila, she broke off from the group when you went to see Celine. She and a woman that wasn't part of your group headed through a door. I don't have cameras behind the door she went through."

"Nobody mentioned Sheila. How do you know about her?" asked Mike, an accusing look in his eyes.

Cervantes's eyes rolled back, and his head started to spin slowly. Smoke poured out of the vents under the screens. Evil laughter could be heard echoing in the small space.

When the smoke cleared, the group found themselves back in the lobby, the door to the monitoring room gone as if it had never existed.


	14. Celine Dion: Large and in Charge

(Author's Note: I've never met Celine Dion. This is my best guess of what she's like.)

The group glanced uneasily at each other, shrugged it off, and headed off to see Celine Dion. Patricia led the way. She had been a girl scout, and was exceptionally good at reading signs. 'Celine Dion this way!' the signs had said. Everyone was very impressed.

They entered a deserted performing hall. Celine didn't perform for another two hours. Patricia walked to the emergency exit at stage right (your left) and opened it. The others stared at her, eyes wide with their hands over their ears. Nothing happened.

Patricia pointed to the word 'fake' in front of the words 'emergency exit'. It was clearly a secret passage to Celine's lair. They followed the hallway until they reached a doorway with a bead curtain hanging over it. Mike brushed away the beads and led the way in.

Inside, they saw a gigantic church organ with a large, high-backed chair facing away from them.

"So… it has come to this." echoed a female voice. "Celine gets to kill some intruders." The high backed chair began to slowly swivel around to face them. In the chair, stroking a white-furred cat, sat Celine Dion. The cat jumped from her lap, and Celine stood and took a few steps toward them. She removed her cigar from her mouth and growled, "What are you doing here? This is my lair."

"Some of us came to see you last night. The guy at the front said that you married a few of us?" asked Mike, noticeably nervous.

"Indeed I did. What of it?" Celine snarled.

Angela looked at her strangely. "How is that even possible? Don't you have to be a justice of the peace for that? Your Wikipedia page says nothing about you being one."

"Back during the shooting of 'Titanic', James Cameron made me an honorary sea captain. I checked with the federal government, and it turns out that that gave me the legal authority to perform weddings. I can even marry people against their will. It's great."

(Author's Note: In addition to never having seen 'Why Did I Get Married?', I also haven't seen 'Titanic'. I assume Celine becomes a sea captain at some point in the movie.)

"Do you remember performing Pam's wedding last night?" asked Terry.

"I do, but I also remember performing your wedding." replied Celine. "And frankly, I found it much more interesting. You and your bride were so cute."

"Oh were they?!" Diane said loudly, looking at Terry.

"Quite. But I only have time to tell you about one of the weddings. I perform soon, and I need to get this cat hair and cigar smell off of me. Choose wisely."

"Then I insist that you tell us about Terry and whoever he married." Diane scowled, still looking at Terry.

"Okay. Terry and Trina ran in here right after my show. I assume they were looking for a place to make out." Celine noticed Diane grinding her teeth, fists clenched. "However, Terry kept going back and forth between calling her Trina and Diane. May I assume that you are Diane?"

"I am. We've been together for two years, and he only met this woman a few days ago!" Diane growled through clenched teeth.

"Now, I have a unique way of performing weddings. Since this is Las Vegas, and there are so very many drunken weddings, I ask the final and binding questions differently than do most. After asking 'Do you take this man/woman to be your husband/wife?' I ask 'And what is his/her name?' Then, if they answer correctly, I pronounce them to be married. Asking for names cuts down my annulling work by about 60%. He happened to answer Trina when I asked him her name, so it totally counted."

"So you can annul the marriage? That's great news!" gasped Diane. "Isn't it Terry?" she turned her head slowly and menacingly toward Terry. Terry nodded furiously, lips sealed.

"I'd love to tell you about Pam's wedding too, but unfortunately, I am out of time. I have to go prepare for my show." said Celine.

Pam gave her a business card and asked her to call them when she had more time. Celine said she would, and pressed the button to call security. Alex showed up mere moments later, and escorted them back to the lobby.

They were going to go back to the bus to plan out their next move, when Patricia froze in place.

"Look over there!" Patricia pointed at a doorway.

"It's a door. So what?" inquired Mike.

"Look at what's on the ground next to the door." Patricia repointed slightly lower.

There was a Big Gulp cup, but it was all warped.

"Don't you remember?" continued Patricia. "Sheila got a Big Gulp last night when we bought the gas station beer! And she filled it with hot coffee! "

"The hot coffee would have warped the thin plastic of the cup!" cried Mike triumphantly.

"Sheila must be on the other side of that door!" said Patricia, already striding toward the door. She opened it, and looked inside. It was the stairs. "Uggh, she could be on any floor!"

They decided to stick together, since there was a kidnapper afoot. They entered the stairwell. Very well.


	15. Stairing Contest

They looked through the narrow gap between the flights of stairs. The stairs down seemed to go on forever. The stairs up, however, only went one floor.

"Let's go up first. I'd feel dumb if we searched all the floors below us and she turned up just one floor above where we started." Angela suggested.

"I don't want to climb stairs. My knee is acting up. I say we go down." whined Mike.

IF YOU WANT THEM TO HAVE A RAP BATTLE TO DECIDE WHERE TO GO, CONTINUE READING. IF YOU THINK THEY SHOULD JUST ABANDON THE HUNT FOR SHEILA, TOO BAD. THEY'RE NOT GOING TO.

They had a rap battle, and Gavin laid down a ridiculously fresh beat. Mike's rhymes were pretty played out though, and he got dissed pretty hard in the end, so the group decided that Angela won, and they went upstairs first.

The door was unlocked, so they went inside. They had stepped into a beautiful green field in a sunny place. There was a lake and a castle in the distance.

They saw a man plowing a field. He was just going to town on that field. They jumped and yelled and hooted, and eventually got his attention.

He was dressed in outdoor work clothes, and had a British flag bandana on his head.

"Hi, we're protagonists, and we're looking for our friend, Sheila." introsplained Marcus.

"Good to meet you. I'm Joshua… in Great Britain!" Joshua said. "I'm the groundskeeper here at Hogwarts… in Great Britain!"

"We're in G to tha B?" Patricia marveled.

"You are. Britain welcomes you. As for your friend Sheila, how Great British was she?" Joshua asked.

"Not very. I don't think she was Great British at all." explained Mike. Mike was very good at ancestry.

"Oh, that's too bad! Great Britain is the greatest country in the world. We even have the word 'great' in our name! Anyway, your friend is probably not here. Anyone who's not British is not allowed in Hogwarts. See this fence?" Joshua pointed chalantly at a fence behind him. "It's a magic fence. Anyone who isn't outrageously British can't get past it. Even if they jump!"

"I'll be the judge of that!" shouted Terry, as he dashed at the fence and leapt over it. The instant he passed the fence, his momentum reversed, and he was flung straight back at his pals.

That convinced them that Sheila was not at Hogwarts. They thanked Joshua and headed back to the door.

"I love Great Britain so much!" yelled Joshua, and he returned to plowing the field.

They crossed through the door, and were back in the stairwell.

They went down two floors, which was one floor below where they had started. Angela was good at math. There was a door here, but this one was locked. Mike headbutted it open, and they went inside.

They were in a field very similar to the first one. They saw Joshua plowing the field, but they were on the far side of the fence. They were immediately launched back at the door through which they had first entered Great Britain.

"Great Britain ruuules!" yelled Joshua as they flew through the door, landing in the stairwell in a heap.

They got up and headed down three floors. There was no door on this level, but the stairs kept going down. They descended down flight after flight of stairs, but none of these levels had any doors. The air began to get hotter.

Finally, covered in sweat, they reached the bottom of the stairs. There was a door here.

"Thank goodness! Look!" yelled Patricia. "There's butter on the door frame!"

"So?" asked Diane. "I'm not going to taste that door!"

"So… Sheila must have been expanding from being excited or nervous about what was behind this door! Her kidnapper must have buttered the doorframe to squeeze her through!"

"Great! Let's open that door. It's like a million degrees in here!" Terry sweat-shouted.

There was no doorknob, so to regain the street cred he had lost in the rap battle, Mike kicked the door open.

In front of them was a stone path that wound through a huge chamber. A shiny silver building stood at the other end of the path. Waves of lava washed up on the sides of the path.

In big black letters on the front of the silver building stood the words "Madea's Secret Volcano Base"


	16. The Underground Fortress

The stone path was strewn with several gas station brand beer cans, indicating that Sheila had continued to drink her beer while being taken down this path.

"This place looks really dangerous." said Terry. "I don't want you guys to get hurt. I'm taking the lead."

They all nervously fell in behind, and followed Terry up to the ominous metal building.

They slowed to a stop in front of the gate. It was open. This seemed too easy. Was it a trap, or did the owner just forget to close it? There was a small sign at the top of the entrance.

"Low ceiling. Watch your head." Terry read. "What? That ceiling's got to be 8 feet up. Who's going to hit their head on AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

"Terry!" screamed Diane. Terry had plummeted into a trap door a couple of feet in front of the sign. A laugh, deep yet clearly female, echoed out of the fortress.

"We can't leave him here! We can't leave Sheila here either!" shouted Mike. "We're going in!"

They stepped around the trap door, and walked bravely into the darkness of Madea's lair. A humming sound could be heard from seemingly every direction. They tried their best to be alert and watch for traps.

The gate slammed shut behind them. Panicked, they looked around. With several loud clunking sounds, the lights overhead blazed on. They were standing in an enormous courtyard, large boulders strewn around the floor. The chamber was ringed at the second level by a balcony. In the center of the courtyard, there was a huge pit of lava. All of the doors out were barred.

"So… You want your friend back." said a female voice, amplified by a series of speakers. "Well, you can't have her! Her swelling power is much too valuable to just leave her alone. With her, the world is mine!"

"What? How is that valuable?" demanded Mike. "That's just her being fat!"

"Oh ho ho! You're lucky I have her in suspended animation. She'd be hurt to hear that you don't find her valuable… Mike." A spotlight switched on in an upper corner of the courtyard. There, suspended on a platform in a liquid filled tube, breathing apparatus attached to her face, was Sheila.

"Sheila!" Mike shouted. He looked around in vain for a way up to her.

"With her, I plan to tunnel under major population centers and make her grow large enough to cause earthquakes and topple buildings! Governments will pay me exorbitant sums of money to spare their cities!"

"You'll never get away with this!" shouted Angela. "I'm going to beat the tar out of you! And I'm not going to stop until you're completely sans tar!"

"Well you can try…" Madea retorted, stepping out onto a ledge on the other side of the lava pool, high above them. "If you can get past Chester."

"Chester?" asked Angela, puzzled.

"Yes, Chester. CHESTER!"

As Madea shouted the word, a rumbling sound filled the cavern, and the lava bubbled. Two huge lava-covered hands reached out of the glowing orange center of the courtyard and began pulling a huge body out of the lava.

"Say hello to Chester, my dragon."

The dragon lifted its head from the lava and let out a deafening roar, shooting fire into the air.

"We're boned." said Diane.


	17. Burning Down the House

"Your stupid dragon doesn't scare us!" shouted Mike. He removed his last jar of hunting urine from his secret compartment, and threw it at Chester. It struck the dragon's face and shattered. Chester just stared at him, displeased, but unphased.

"What? That's… that's just gross, Mike!" shouted Madea from her lofty perch.

Chester shot a ball of flame at the group. They scattered, and narrowly avoided being burned alive.

"Ok, now your dragon scares me." shouted Mike.

The gang split up. Mike, Marcus, Angela and Patricia hid behind rocks while Trina, Diane, Gavin, and Pam ran up the stairs to the second floor balcony.

Up on the second floor, there were windows to the inside of the building. They were barred, but they were still made of glass. Gavin wrapped his fist in his overshirt, and started punching windows. Large shards of glass fell onto the balcony. Trina, Pam, and Diane picked up the shards and began flinging them at the dragon.

Most of them bounced off its thick skin harmlessly, but Pam managed to send one flying into Chester's left eye. The dragon reared its head in pain, then fired blindly in their direction. The fire superheated the balcony supports, and the impact from Gavin diving out of the way of the blast caused that section of the balcony to collapse. The four of them fell to the ground below.

They were all back where they started, but now the dragon was down to one working eye.

"Chester! Go! Hit them with a splash attack!" Madea bellowed.

The dragon slowly reached back with both of its arms, preparing to swing forward and strike the lava.

"Wait!" yelled Madea, halting her dragon. "Gavin? Is that you?"

"You know me from somewhere?" Gavin asked.

"That hurts, love. We got married last night!" she responded, sounding scorned

"What?" howled Gavin and Patricia.

"Yes, we got married. We walked out of Caesar's Palace to a chapel. When we were done, I had to be somewhere. You went back to Caesar's, got a drink and went to the ball pit with Mike." she elaborated.

This all seemed to fit. However…

"I could never marry you! I love Patricia! Besides, my job is in Oakland. I'm not driving all the way out here to see you!" shouted Gavin.

"Fine, screw it." Madea shrugged. "You'll just have to die. Chester! Burn them!"

Chester let loose an enormous wave of fire. It billowed around the rock they were hiding behind. Angela's hair started to smolder from the heat.

"Protagonists! Are you alright?" Professor Stewart's voice rang out from inside their minds. "Celine Dion has finished her performance, but has been unable to contact Pam. She left a voicemail on Pam's phone."

"Thank you Professor!" thought Pam, though she had no idea if he could hear her. She pulled out her phone, and put the voicemail on speaker. They all gathered around.

"Pam, this is Celine. I want to tell you about your wedding. It didn't seem out of the ordinary last night, but thinking about it today, it was pretty unusual. You walked down the aisle of my wedding hall and exchanged vows with a salt water aquarium. Pam, what I'm trying to say is… you are married to the sea." There was a beeping sound on the line. "As an ordained sea captain, I can marry people to things as well as other people. Call me back when you can if you want to know more. Bye!"

They stared at Pam with scowls on their faces. "You've been hanging around all day, and you're not even married to one of us? What gives?" asked Marcus.

Pam didn't react. She didn't even hear him. She was still looking at her phone. The screen displayed a missed call from when they were listening to the voicemail. It was from a contact listed as 'The Sea'.


	18. Feeling Flushed

Chester roared again and Madea let out a scream of rage. The enormous dragon dug its claws into the ground and begun to pull itself out of the lava pit.

Everyone but Pam scattered and ran as far from the dragon as they could get themselves. Pam was still frozen and staring at her phone.

"Could it be?" she thought to herself. She pressed some buttons on her phone to call the number back.

Gavin began punching the windows on the ground floor, covering the ground in glass shards. Patricia and Diane picked up glass and began whipping them at the dragon, trying to distract it from the defenseless Pam, who was still behind the rock.

Pam could hear the phone ring. On the second ring, someone picked up on the other side and, with some urgency, asked "Pam? Are you okay? I never heard back from you after you ran off with those protagonists!"

"I'm okay, but I won't be for long. We're in an underground magma chamber under the Caesar's Palace casino in Las Vegas, and this woman's dragon is attacking us!" she whispered, hoping the dragon hadn't noticed her.

"I'm on my way." The voice hung up.

The dragon had three of its legs out of the pool, and was craning its neck to see around the rock. It took a deep breath and prepared to cover the area in flame. Trina hurled a shard of glass as hard as she could, and it struck Chester in his only remaining functional eye. The pained jerk of his head that resulted threw him off balance, and back into the pool of hot liquid rock.

The agonized roar snapped Pam out of her trance, and she turned her head in time to see the blinded dragon thrashing about in the lava. A stray splash ignited Diane's clothing and burned away just enough of it to be sexy, but keep this acceptable for all ages.

The thrashing continued, and the cavern began to rumble. They could hear faint screams from far above them carried through the ventilation system. A light rain started to fall in the cavern, which quickly intensified into a downpour. Water was gushing through vents and had begun flowing through the stairwell from which they had entered.

"No!" screamed Madea. "Chester!"

The dragon's roars had grown in volume from their already deafening levels, but its thrashing was slowing. The glow from the pit in which he struggled had begun to lose its glow, and instead had started billowing steam. The lava was solidifying around him.

Soon, his movement slowed to a stop, and he lay defeated, three legs and a wing sticking out of the pit. The group stared at him for a moment, but their attention was soon ripped away by the sound of a deep female scream.

A burst of water had swept Madea off of her platform high above them. She was plummeting toward the rising pool far below her. She crashed into the water, still much too shallow to accommodate, and smashed her head on a rock. A wig fell off of her head.

The group waded over to see the damage.

"Terry?" Diane gasped in disbelief.

There lay Terry, soaking wet and dressed in women's clothing. It had been him all along.

"I suppose I should have seen this coming." said Diane, sounding tired. "They _are_ both played by the same actor. Still, I love him, and I can't leave him to drown here." She picked him up and draped him over her shoulder.

The water had begun rising faster now. Terry's Madea outfit floated pretty well, and except for the chaotically flowing torrents of water, they had little difficulty keeping him above water.

"Blubbubbbbguh!" shouted the less buoyant Mike as he went under. He bobbed back to the surface and gasped for air. "This water is mad salty!"

Pam tasted the water. It was indeed salty! "The Sea does love me! He came to save us!" she cried.

Soon the water had carried them up to the roof of the silver fortress, next to Sheila's tank. Gavin punched the glass, like he had with all the windows downstairs and Sheila poured out into Mike's waiting arms.

She woke with a start. "Where am I?" she asked, clearly confused. "The last thing I remember, Angela had hit a giant duck with the bus."

"You were kidnapped and put into suspended animation. We're escaping now, so I'll give you more details later." Mike said into her ear.

They floated on and swam toward a door on a catwalk high above the floor of the chamber. They ran in, and slammed the door behind them. Water trickled around the door frame, but it was only enough to get the walkway wet.

They followed the hallway until they got to a large well-lit chamber. Dominating the room was a giant blimp. They hurried onboard, and Marcus took the controls.

"Those years of blimp lessons had better pay off." He mumbled to himself.

Somewhere, Deus was mailing off his blimp instructor license renewal form.

The blimp slowly started to rise, up the cylindrical chamber above them. After floating up around 100 meters, sunlight began to pour in as the ceiling irised open. They rose into the fresh desert air, above ground for the first time in what seemed like hours. Water was beginning to recede and flow to the south, down the Arizona/California border to the Gulf of California.

Marcus landed the blimp in the parking lot in front of Caesar's Palace. Ambulances swarmed around and paramedics ran up to them, discarding  
their parachutes.

"How did they know that we needed ambulances?" asked Patricia. Her gaze found Professor Stewart.

"Good work." she heard in her head as he winked at her.

Everything was going to be okay. They could get all these marriages annulled the next day. For now, she would recover and maybe have a drink by the pool.

The End


	19. Epilogue

In the parking lot, Diane was still knelt down next to Terry. A swirl of emotions filled her head.

Two police officers walked over and knelt down on the other side of Terry's unconscious body, opposite her. They introduced themselves to her as Officer Ethan and Officer Daniels.

"She has committed lots of crimes." said Ethan.

"And she's escaped us many times." said Daniels.

Patricia looked at them strangely.

"We'll have to lock them both away." Ethan explained.

"So no one else gets kidnapped, eh?" elaborated Daniels.

Ethan turned to Daniels. "You really needn't make things rhyme."

"Of course I do, bro. Every time." Daniels replied, his right fist raised and ready to bump.

Patricia screamed in frustration. Daniels lowered his fist, frowning.

Officer Ethan drew a set of zip tie handcuffs from his policeman's utility belt to bind Terry's hands.

Just then, Professor Stewart wheeled over to them.

"From where I'm sitting, it seems that Terry here has a case of split personality disorder. Terry had no idea that he was also Madea. When he fell through the trap door, the familiar setting of Madea's lair may have triggered the mental transformation." said Professor Stewart.

"How do you have that information?" asked Officer Daniels.

"I'm a powerful psychic. I got the information from Patricia's memories." explained the professor. "I'm also terribly rude, which is why I didn't ask permission."

"We'll let him go, with one condition." said Daniels.

Ethan cut in before anymore rhyming could happen. "Can you lock away the Madea part of Terry's mind? That way we wouldn't have to put the innocent half of this man in jail."

"I'll do it now, and I won't fail." said Professor Stewart with a smirk, and his mind magic began.

The rest of the friends were standing in a group a ways off from Patricia and Terry. A woman in a trench coat and a hat approached them.

"You're agent Walton from the FBI!" exclaimed Angela. "You were the first professional kickboxer to land on the moon!"

"I am." Walton replied. "We've been pursuing Madea for years. Now, thanks to you, she's off the streets and no longer a danger to our great nation. On behalf of the FBI, I'd like to give you these keys to the city of Las Vegas."

"What are you going to do now?" a reporter with a video camera shoved through the crowd to ask them.

Mike and Gavin looked at each other and yelled "Ball pit!" and high fived.

Pam walked off to the edge of the parking lot so she could be by herself for a bit. She pulled out her phone, which miraculously had no water damage, and made a phone call.

"Pam! Are you okay?" asked The Sea.

"I am. You saved us all! Thank you!" said Pam. "When can I see you again?"

"Right now." The Sea replied, and a surge of water flowed up the street and carried her south toward the gulf.

"Best day everrrrrrr!" shouted Pam as she was swept away.

Once the professor had finished sealing Madea away in Terry's mind and everyone was all dried off and conscious again, the paramedics, police officers, and FBI agents all waved goodbye, and the original 9 boarded the amazing bus.

Angela was having a particularly hard time with the clutch. The crowd outside could be seen choking and falling to the ground, lungs full of clutch smoke.

"Let me help you with that." said a deep metallic voice that seemed to come from the bus's stereo speakers, and the bus shifted into first gear.

The wheel turned by itself, and the bus drove autonomously out of the parking lot. As it drove toward the cabin, the voice continued, "I'm sorry I didn't make myself known before. I am the Personnel Action Transport Bus of Transportation, or PATBOT. I am a robotic government agent. The man you stole me from was also an agent, and we were on our way to Las Vegas to catch Madea. I stayed undercover while investigating what you planned to do with me. Once my sensors detected this morning that one of you had Madea's DNA running through their veins, I couldn't let you out of my sight. That's when I radioed the FBI and sent them to the casino."

They pulled up to the cabin. The whole place was spotless! Next to the pool stood Amadeus Xavier Mackinaw.

"I cleaned the cabin for you! Let's get drunk!" Deus yelled.

"I have a margarita machine built in!" PATBOT chimed in.

The group cheered and jumped into the pool, intent on having a good time to make up for the day's trouble.

The next morning, the gang woke up to find the house in ruins. No one had any recollection of the night before after they arrived at the cabin. Sheila was missing again.

Mike walked up to Trina, raised one eyebrow, and asked, "How you doin'?"

The End

PS: Deus had also picked up some new pillows for them from town. They were all destroyed in Chapter 8, remember? I know you've been wondering about that.


End file.
